Ethereal
by Jennie Exell
Summary: BA Love is forever, and will wait a lifetime. Buffy Survivor week Two, three word challenge.


She was running as fast as she could, but it seemed like no matter how fast she ran, it would never be fast enough. Her hair was matted to her face, the rain was coming down hard enough that she couldn't see ten feet in front of her, but she still ran.

Time was running out, she knew it the moment she got his message, the moment his voice said something he'd never said to her before. He'd said goodbye.

She could feel him, he was close. But she could feel other things, too many other things, her slayer sense was running wild. Rounding another corner, she stopped dead, and watched as a tall dark figure, clinging to the neck of what looked like a dragon, raised his sword and with a single blow, pushed the blade through the creature's skull all the way to the hilt.

The creature screamed and crumpled, the figure falling with it, and landing impaled on the pines of a dead demon below. The other slayers were rushing past her now, but she was paralysed, unable to move, sick with knowledge she wished she didn't have.

A slayer running past her, whacked into her shoulder and she was jerked back into action, sprinting forward to the fallen figure, and falling to her knees at his side. Four large spines pierced his body, in the neck, chest, abdomen and thigh. His blood mixed with the dead demon's, coagulating and then diluting with the heavy rain, to make a watery pinkish yellow soup.

She recognised the demon, knew the spines contained venom, yet still she reached forward to heave his heavy form away. Her hand made contact with his, and glazed eyes opened and met hers. She wondered if he could even see, his irises turning milky white with every second that past.

She paid no heed to the battle raging around her, but she could feel they were winning, she was connected to her sister slayers, and knew their number remained strong yet the demon's numbers were dwindling. Her only focus was the fallen man, and his hand weakly holding hers.

He laughed, or she thought he did, a wheezed rasp, the sound distorted by his pierced throat and lung.

"I killed the dragon." He said in barely a whisper, before a soft smile graced his lips. The next second, his body bowed, the effects of the demon's venom working like a neurotoxin and sending his body into spasms. She watched in horror as it happened, as the movement severed what was left of his neck and Angel turned to dust.

Buffy screamed.

Buffy sat upright in bed, the tail of end of the scream punctuating the still air of her apartment. Sixty years, and yet she still woke screaming from the same nightmare, the same memory. She was 84 years old, a grandmother, had been married and divorced, had seen her children graduate college, had wept at her daughters wedding, and had been strong as her son had gone into surgery after the discovery of a brain tumour. Yet it was still that memory that haunted her, the memory of Angel dying, not even realising she was there.

That moment had changed her life as drastically as her calling had, perhaps even more. After his death, she'd fallen into depression so deep, most thought she'd never recover. But she had; Angel had come to her in a dream, he had told her many of the same things that he had in that sewer before her senior prom, only this time there was a promise there too. A promise that he would wait.

So she'd done as he asked, she wouldn't let him down. She'd lived her life as best she could, and always in her heart, the knowledge that somewhere, Angel was watching her and was proud of her. Now she grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and wiped her yes. When she opened them again, she had to blink at what she saw.

"Hey." It was Angel, sat crossed legged on the end of her bed, his elbows on his knees, his chin cupped in his hands. He was dressed in simple white pants and a shirt, his feet were bare, and his hair was long, tied back loosely so that strands hung adorably around his face. But what she noticed most were his eyes, they were so full of peace that she thought she might weep from the sight of it, and behind him, spread wide and flexing as he breathed, was a pair of magnificent wings.

"A… Angel?"

He chuckled, a sound filled with mirth that made his eyes sparkle.

"In more ways than one." He said, crinkling his nose and giving his wings a tiny, mischievous flap. He looked even younger than she remembered, not much older than twenty. The only words she could think of were beautiful, ethereal.

"What?..." But he cut her off, standing and coming round to crouch at her side.

"Shhh… lie back down." He took her wizened hand in his, and helped her lie back down. Once she was comfortably nestled back amongst the blankets and pillows, he smiled. "Rest… its time."

Buffy wanted to argue, to ask what was going on, but she was so tired that her eyes closed of their own volition. The last thing she heard before she slipped into sleep was his voice.

"Sleep now, its time to come home."

Angela, Buffy eldest daughter, was the one who found her body. Overwhelmed as she was, she noticed two things that made the faintest smile flit across her lips. The smile that graced her mother's face was one of pure peace, and on her mother's finger, was the tiny silver claddagh that had rested in her jewellery case, for as long as she could remember. Turning teary eyes heavenward, she whispered.

"You gotta look after her now."

And although she would never tell a soul, she could have sworn she heard a whispered reply.

"Always."

THE END

_Challenge words. Soup, Blanket, Tissue_


End file.
